


Rapier

by vixx_3



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Akumatized Adrien Agreste, Akumatized Chat Noir, Angst, F/M, Identity Reveal, Reveal, adrien is SAD, anyway, i called him Rapier, i wrote this like 2 years ago but never posted it bc i am a coward, its a reveal fic, just some snuggles and crushes is all, not very shippy!, plagg is a good bro at heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 09:08:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12208152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vixx_3/pseuds/vixx_3
Summary: Adrien's dad is a lonely jerk who pushes his loneliness on his son because no Agreste is ever allowed to be happy again or something. Adrien is sad, Hawkmoth does The Thing, and Ladybug saves the day.





	Rapier

     Adrien stared at his schedule as he left the school, going over the long list of obligations that his father had failed to notify him of until that morning. He sighed. Instead of seeing a movie with Nino, he would be spending several hours staring at a camera in various outfits. Sometimes it seemed that his father intentionally arranged his schedule so he wouldn’t have any time with his friends. The thought made Adrien angry. What right did Gabriel have to do that? They were his friends, part of his life. His dad shouldn’t have any say in how much time he spent with them.  
     No, not my dad, Adrien reminded himself glumly, my boss. Seriously, when was the last time Gabriel had spoken to Adrien for any reason other than telling him that he was late or had misbehaved in a photoshoot again? He was more of a live-in employee than a son.  
     Usually, it didn’t bother him, but lately it had been upsetting beyond belief. If Mother were here, he wouldn’t be like this. Adrien’s eyes welled up. She’s not here. That’s why he’s like this at all. His mother had hated the distance that Gabriel was slowly putting between himself and his family. She couldn’t stand it. Gabriel loved her, perhaps more than anything, but was too engrossed in his business to show it. One day, Adrien’s mother disappeared. She took her purse, went for a walk, and never came home. Gabriel had never been the same.  
     When Adrien was a child, Gabriel had at least acknowledged him. Treated him like a son. They used to have dinner together as a family, and on rare nights when everything had gone well, his father would laugh. Adrien’s mother would light up everytime this happened, smiling and tickling Adrien until he squealed. Those were the best memories Adrien had of his family. Other memories of family dinners weren’t so pleasant.  
     On days where something had gone wrong and Gabriel was in a bad mood, silence hung heavy and thick around the table. His mother seemed to shrink in her chair, leaning away from her husband as he glowered at his plate. The silence was occasionally broken by a sigh, but the worst was yet to come.  
     Adrien’s worst memory took place on the night before his mother left. It had been a horrible day for his father, something Adrien understood all too well, even in his young age. The night started off as usual with suffocating silence, but was broken with a yell.  
     “You!” Gabriel thundered, pointing at his wife. “If not for you, none of this would have happened!”  
     “Gabriel, please! It was a mistake! Please, calm down.” She cast a meaningful look at Adrien, innocently looking up at her, eyes wide with fear. Gabriel paid them no mind.  
     “A mistake? It was more than a mistake! You ruined an entire production line and made us late for the next show!”  
     “Please, honey, my mind was elsewhere!”  
     “Elsewhere? Where could it have been that was more important than our company? Agreste fashion is the foundation of this house, this family. If you’re able to ruin it just by not paying attention, I’m not sure why you work here!”  
     The words echoed off the mansion walls, bouncing back to strike again. Adrien’s mother looked stricken. Her eyes were wide and mouth agape, fingers curled limply around her fork.  
     “I’m sorry,” she said, looking down, “It won’t happen again.”  
     Gabriel glared at her. “Don’t make me regret forgiving you.”

     It never happened again. His mother was gone the next day, without even a note as to where she had gone. Gabriel became even more closed off, locking himself in his office for days at a time. Natalie tried to keep the business together, tutoring Adrien in his Kindergarten-level reading and math and avoiding the child’s questions about his mother. Ten years later, Adrien had answers to those questions himself.  
     No, she was never coming back.  
     Yes, it was his father’s fault that she left.  
     No, his mother didn’t love his father anymore. She might not even love Adrien.  
     Tears clouded Adrien’s vision, but he blinked them away. Red-rimmed eyes wouldn’t do him any favors with Gabriel. Breathing a shaky sigh, he resumed his quick pace toward the park. It was only a few blocks away, close enough that he had waived off his driver for the day. The sunlight and fresh air were good for him, calming him down, but anger still bubbled just beneath the surface. He couldn’t keep his mind off of his mother, and how angry he was at himself and his father for chasing her away. If only I had done something, he thought, If only I could have made her stay. Even though he knew his wishes were ridiculous, even though he understood that it wasn’t his fault, guilt still crushed him. What if it had been his fault?  
Adrien staggered, taking deep breaths once he caught himself on a tree. The ring on his right hand seemed to burn, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.  
     “ _Rapier, I am Hawkmoth_.” A voice rang through his head. Adrien jumped. No. He hadn’t attracted an akuma. No way. “ _I can help you get your revenge. I only ask for little in return_.”  
     Adrien struggled, but he was tired and weakened, so plagued by dark thoughts that he let them consume him. Shadows bubbled over him, transforming him. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sensation, but it felt different from becoming Chat Noir. More sinister. More powerful. A sly smirk grew on his face as he ignored the kwami hovering around his head.  
     “Adrien? Adrien! What are you doing?” Rapier swatted Plagg away with the back of his hand. The kwami paled as he saw the ring that struck him. The akuma had possessed the boy’s miraculous.  
     Abandoning his host, Plagg sped across paris toward Dupain bakery. Unlike Adrien, he knew Ladybug’s identity. He and Tikki had sought each other out during gym class several times to talk. He hit Marinette’s window hard with a thunk, causing both girl and kwami to jump. Tikki flew to him immediately, yelling for Marinette. The girl opened her window, allowing Plagg inside.  
     “Marinette, this is Plagg.” Tikki introduced them, staring at the cat kwami with a confused expression.  
     “Are you Chat Noir’s kwami?” Marinette asked, holding out her hands for Plagg to rest on them. He nodded.  
     “Yeah… And Chat needs some help.”  
     Marinette’s eyes narrowed. How could Chat need help if he wasn’t transformed? Suddenly, she gasped. Had something happened to his civilian self?  
     “Tikki, transform me!” she cried. Tikki obliged immediately, and Ladybug picked Plagg up gingerly. “Do you want to ride on my shoulder? You seem a little tired.”  
     Plagg smiled at her gratefully, curling against her neck and holding onto the ribbon in her hair. Marinette could feel Tikki’s worry. Plagg was acting very un-Chat-like. Tikki was sure something was very, very wrong.  
     Plagg directed them from rooftop to rooftop, back to where he had last seen Adrien. When they arrived, the boy was holding a sword and grinning evilly as he turned things around him to dust.  
     “Just as my father destroyed my family, I will destroy his city!” Rapier yelled, pointing his sword at a nearby billboard for Agreste Fashions. The billboard cracked and crumbled, raining debris onto the civilians below.  
     Marinette’s eyes widened. “Adrien! Oh, no.” Feeling Plagg gulp on her shoulder, she glanced at his nervous expression, and the puzzle pieces began to come together, but Marinette was too distracted by adrenaline to worry about Chat’s identity. His kwami was tense as he watched his host destroy the park. Any camera that came into Adrien’s sight crumbled to dust.  
     “I never knew he hated modelling that much.” Marinette muttered, watching with sympathy.  
     “Not always.” Plagg said softly. “He does enjoy it, but he hates being forced into anything, so he resents his father.” The kwami was leaning heavily on Ladybug’s neck now, exhausted and weak. She glanced at him, worried.  
     “His miraculous…” she whispered, “The akuma possessed his miraculous, didn’t it.” Plagg nodded blearily at her. Marinette swallowed against the sudden dryness of her throat. She had fought her partner before, but never like this. Never when he was so upset.  
     “Ladybug…” Rapier turned to look at her with a bittersweet smile. “Of course you came.”  
     “ _Rapier! Take her miraculous!_ ” Hawkmoth screamed at him. He winced. He respected his partner, and her privacy, more than anything. He knew that taking her miraculous would mean revealing her. He tried to resist Hawkmoth, but a sudden static in his mind forced him to stagger.  
     “ _Take it_.” Adrien grimaced, but stepped forward.  
     “I’ll need those lovely earrings, Ladybug.” he said, raising his sword to point at her. Shadows shot from its tip, missing Ladybug by inches as she dodged to the side.  
     “I don’t want to fight you, Adrien.”  
    _I don’t want to fight you, either._  
     “ _You will bring me her miraculous, boy_.”  
     Adrien furrowed his eyebrows, stepping forward and shooting another beam at his partner. She dodged again.  
     “Is this about your father?”  
     Another beam.  
     “Your mother?”  
     A growl. Ladybug dodged quickly, narrowly avoiding the shadows he threw at her.  
     “She left, right?”  
     “No.”  
     “I know she did.”  
     “No!”  
     “It wasn’t your fault, Adrien. You were too young to understand!”  
     “NO!”  
     The conversation came to an end as Adrien became angrier still, shooting beam after beam at Ladybug. Finally, he paused long enough for her to talk again.  
     “Adrien, you can’t blame yourself. I know it upset you, I know you’re still hurt by it, but your father will come around. I know he hasn’t reached out to you, but no one has reached out to him in as many years. He’s just as lonely as you are.”  
     Adrien’s eyes widened, filling with tears as he crumpled to the ground. Hawkmoth tried to force him to his feet, force him to fight, but he couldn’t move. Instead of anger, the akuma now fed on guilt. He hadn’t tried to fix it. He hadn’t reached out to his father. He had let ten years of pain and sorrow build up in both of them without doing anything about it.  
     Hawkmoth yelled in his mind. “ _What about Ladybug?_ ” he screeched. “ _Hasn’t she hurt you_?” Adrien looked up at the superhero, tears making his vision too blurry to focus on her.  
     “You turned me down!” he choked out, forcing down a sob. “You laugh at my confessions every time!” He knew he was outing himself as Chat, if she didn’t know already, but couldn’t bring himself to care. Hawkmoth had uncapped the bottle he kept his emotions inside, and was relentlessly using them to control him. Adrien was unable to care.  
     Marinette’s eyes widened as the puzzle pieces clicked into place. She had known the whole fight, ever since Plagg lead her there, but the realization hadn’t quite hit her yet.  
     Forcing down her shock, she stepped forward hesitantly. “Adrien- Chat- Look, I understand that now. I’m not sure I did before, but I really do now. I’m not sure you’d believe just how well I understand that.” Marinette had to force back a hysteric giggle. Wow, the boy she had been pining after for years was the same boy who had been after her since she met him? She could barely believe it.  
     Adrien looked up, red-rimmed eyes boring into hers. “You don’t.”  
     “Huh?”  
     “You don’t understand.”  
     Marinette bit her lip, thinking of all the times her awkward, nervous giggling and clumsy nature around Adrien had drawn a laugh out of the boy. She knew he had never meant to be mean, but it was frustrating to her that she couldn’t do anything smoothly enough to be taken seriously.  
     “I do, Adrien. I really do.”  
     Earnesty filled the eyes of his lady as she gazed at him sympathetically. Adrien crumpled, breaking down, ignoring Hawkmoth’s insistant screeching to fight. The villain was hurting him, clenching his very soul in a white-hot grip that froze him to the core, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t move. He was exhausted and afraid, of himself, of Ladybug, of Hawkmoth. Of Gabriel. Staring at the ground in front of him, he didn’t move until a familiar black kwami blocked his view.  
     “Plagg?” he choked out, “What are you doing here?”  
     Plagg gave a pained smile - having his host akumatized was taking a lot out of him. “I brought help,” he replied, gesturing to Ladybug. Adrien knew he should be mad - Hawkmoth was urging him to be - but he couldn’t find any emotion other than gratefulness. He hugged the little kwami, muttering apologies as his eyes watered once more.  
     “ _Marinette_.” Tikki’s voice sounded in her ear. Marinette tilted her head, listening closely to her earrings. “ _You have to break the ring. It’s the only way to free the akuma_.”  
     Marinette stared at Adrien’s ring. Break his miraculous? But what about Plagg? What would happen to Chat Noir?  
     “ _It will be okay, Marinette. You’re Ladybug. Your magic will fix it._ ”  
     What if it didn’t? What if she lost her partner? How could she keep fighting?  
     “ _Mari, look at him. He’s in pain. You’re the only person who can help him_.”  
     Adrien sat crumpled at her feet, curled around Plagg, sobs shaking his body. Every muscle was tense and his eyes were shut tightly, as though he was willing away tremors of pain. Marinette swallowed, then bent down and took his right hand in hers. It was cold, clammy. The ring seemed to be charged with electricity, burning her from a freezing temperature.  
Plagg smiled sadly at her, reassuring and grateful. Tikki hummed a calming tune in her in her earrings.  
     “ _You can do it_.”  
     Taking a deep breath, Marinette threw the ring at the pavement below her.  
     Adrien’s eyes snapped open. He watched as Ladybug crushed his ring beneath her foot, heard it crack. It was as though someone had stabbed him through the chest. He sucked in a gasp, then fell onto his stomach, barely conscious. Plagg hovered above him. The kwami could feel himself becoming transparent, but was too worried about his host to care. He floated inches from Adrien’s nose, barely noticing as Ladybug purified the Akuma behind him.  
     She made to throw her lucky charm into the air, then panicked when she realized she hadn’t used it.  
      _Tikki, I don’t have my Lucky Charm! What do I do?_  
     “ _Mari, you don’t need it. It’s just a catalyst, you hold the real power_.”  
     Of course, leave it to Tikki to speak in riddles. Marinette looked down at her hands, then at Adrien and Plagg. Figure it out, she thought to herself. For them. The kwami seemed to be getting weaker and weaker, and she could see the faint outlines of buildings through his body. Swallowing hard, Marinette picked up her yoyo. For Paris. Throwing it high above her head, she cried out,  
     “Miraculous Ladybug!”  
     Red light swamped the park, swirling around damaged areas and leaving them good as new. Finally, it reached Adrien, surrounding him in red as Hakwmoth’s magic left him. The light dispersed, and Ladybug ran to Adrien, gathering him in her arms and crying.  
     “I was so scared, Adrien. I was so, so, scared. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come back.”  
     Adrien blinked, groggy, then lightly hugged her back. “I wouldn’t leave you, my lady.” he whispered, then jumped as her earrings beeped. “Ladybug, your-”  
     Ladybug shook her head. “I don’t care,” she muttered. Her transformation wore off, but she didn’t move. She barely registered Tikki shooting into Adrien’s lap and hugging Plagg through her haze of tears. Adrien sat up a little, looking at her.  
     “Marinette?”  
     The girl nodded silently, doing her best to pull herself together. She leaned back and gave him a watery smile.  
     “I’m glad you’re okay.”  
     Adrien’s concern melted into a smile. A real, happy, grateful smile, not one he put on for the cameras. He crushed her into a hug.  
     “Thank you. Thank you so much. I’m so, so sorry.” he muttered, repeating himself over and over.  
     Marinette drew in a shaky laugh. “I couldn’t just stand by and watch my partner beat himself up. That’s my job.”  
     Adrien smiled, glad that the Ladybug he knew and loved seemed to be returning. He drew back to thank her once more, then stopped when he saw her kwami settle on her shoulder. Plagg followed close behind, Adrien’s ring in his paws. He settled on Marinette’s knee and held it out to his host.  
     Adrien picked up the ring and inspected it. It seemed unharmed, aside from a small crack on the edge of the face.  
     “It’s cracked,” he muttered. Marinette cringed.  
     “Sorry…”  
     “It wasn’t your fault, Marinette.” Tikki interrupted. “You did excellently. That crack just won’t heal.”  
     Adrien looked up at the kwami, puzzled. “Why not?”  
     Tikki smiled at him, floating down to lay tiny paws over his fingers. “Some cracks never heal, Adrien, but over time they just become scars of battles fought and won.”  
     Adrien felt his eyes welling up as he cradled the kwami for a moment before slipping the ring over his finger and hugging Marinette tightly.  
     “Thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first fic ive done for this fandom, and the first fic ive ever posted. feedback is appreciated! tell me why i suck <3


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